Heroic School Employee Talks Down Armed Man, Stops Potential Shooting

Antoinette Tuff, who works in the front office at Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, Georgia, Atlanta prevented a mass shooting by talking down an enraged shooter who claimed to be mentally unstable.

Tuff, a bookkeeper, was filling in for the receptionist that day. She initially thought it was a joke when a man armed with an AK-47 walked into the reception area and announced his intent to seize the building and carry out a shooting.

As the man walked back and forth in the reception area, she prayed in her heart to God asking what she needs to say or do to prevent the situation from escalating.

“God, what do I do?? what do I say?? how do I say it?? Every word out of my mouth now is life or death. Not just for me and the gunman but for everyone in the building. How do I do this? So I am actually having a conversation with God. Okay, direct me, guide me”, Tuff explains.

She then intervened and calmly spoke with the man, sharing her struggles as a single mother with a disabled son and her battles with depression, including multiple suicide attempts, after her husband left her. Now she had learned how to spend quality time with God every morning and lean on Him for strength and love. Tuff’s words spoke to his heart and finally the 20-year-old gunman surrendered to police without a single person being injured or killed.

Tuff says that it could only have been because of God, that she was able to handle the situation in such a composed manner given her mental state in that phase of her life. “That was God using me for that moment,” she says and gives all the credit to God as she narrates the entire incident which had rocked the entire country back in 2013.

She added that God is someone who sits on high but looks on low. The personal relationship she has cultivated with Jesus Christ made all the difference that day. God gave her a supernatural peace which surpassed her own understanding, to handle the dangerous situation.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6‭-‬7 (NKJV)

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